Swimming Kangaroo Books
Arlington TX
9781934041789 $13.99 www.swimmingkangaroo.com
Karina L. Fabian has been writing Dragon Eye, PI stories for years. Fans have eagerly awaited a full-length novel focusing on the exploits of Vern, a dragon private investigator, and his associate, Sister Grace of the Faerie Catholic Church. Magic, Mensa & Mayhem: From the Case Files of Dragon Eye, PI is sure to please fans.
Vern and Sister Grace are originally from the realm of Faerie, an alternative universe for which access had only recently been afforded to human beings. As humans and faerie beings interacted and crossed into each other’s realms, they also began to exchange cultural and economic ideas and goods.
In Magic, Mensa & Mayhem: From the Case Files of Dragon Eye, PI, Vern and Sister Grace have been asked to “babysit” (as Vern calls it) a Mensa convention to which many faerie experts have been invited. Mensa is a real human organization of highly intelligent people who have to test into the organization with an IQ of 140 or higher. They often meet at conventions such as the one in this book. But here, Vern and Sister Grace soon find that babysitting intelligent humans and quirky faerie folk at a Billy Beaver’s Fantasyland is not a restful vacation for them. Vern goes on nightly patrols with the hotel security staff, gets into trouble with local environmentalists when he takes a moonlit dip in the ocean, and deals with cleaning brownies, a nymphomaniac Valkyrie, a charming trickster Coyote, and ego-inflated elves who are in the midst of a longstanding feud.
Magic, Mensa & Mayhem: From the Case Files of Dragon Eye, PI is chockfull of comic incidents, snappy one-liners from Vern, and lots of Sister Grace’s magic. And, of course, the whole faerie entourage is larger than life and full of their own humorous quirks.
I really enjoyed Magic, Mensa & Mayhem: From the Case Files of Dragon Eye, PI. Vern has such a unique personality and a strong sense of humor – but he still behaves like a PI. Sister Grace is long suffering and behaves – for the most part as you would expect a nun to act – except that a faerie nun uses magic as well as prayer and she is subject to a wholly different set of spiritual rules than members of a spiritual community in the human realm.
That, I think, is the hallmark of Karina L. Fabian’s work. She has created a new “religion” for her characters who are members of the Faerie Catholic Church. (Even Vern is part of that spiritual recreation since he is the dragon that St. George conquered – except he wasn’t killed. St. George subdued Vern and put a spell on him to wipe his memory and thus all of his knowledge. Vern has spent years regaining his wisdom and his powers by doing good deeds.) Fabian has been instrumental in helping writers create not only new worlds in fantasy and science fiction, but also new religions and spiritual practices. She is the co-editor of Infinite Space, Infinite God, a collection of short stories that deal with spirituality in space – a most refreshing idea in science fiction.
Currently, a second Dragon Eye PI novel, Live and Let Fly, is completed and being shopped to publishers
